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The answer is Baltimore. Baltimore is cool as shit and still cheap.
“My favourite characters are people who think they’re normal but they’re not. I live in Baltimore, and it’s full of people like that. I’ve also lived in New York, which is full of people who think they’re crazy, but they’re completely normal.” - John Waters
The front range of Colorado is nice. Denver can be done on like $1200~, Fort Collins is like $800-1200, while the art and music scenes are somewhat small they’re active and have great venues. If I piss in a circle, ten amazing hikes will get wet. There are PSL and DSA chapters along with a local SRA breakoff and mutual aid militia.
Highly recommended. I’d otherwise only move to the PNW.
edit: It’s also the kind of nature that you’ll never exhaust. I’ve been here since 2018 and have barely left one corner of the state. Recently in that corner I found out that there’s a whole other wilderness zone with 70 lakes that just got lost between the other two I normally go to within an hour’s drive. I can camp in dark sky areas within that hour.
Denver has mediocre public transit (dirty lightrail, buses), is hostile to its homeless population at the level of California, and the air quality is bad because the Rockies trap air. The cowfucker areas around it are Qanon territory. It’s pretty white outside of Aurora, and both Denver and Aurora police are corrupt and unhinged departments. To me it feels on par with like San Antonio or Austin. It’s a Little Big City and what makes it amazing is the mountain range behind it. The wildfires are also terrifying and can turn the air quality index like 150+ for multiple weeks. One hit an unforested suburb of Denver last December so nothing is safe but they take the place of Midwestern tornadoes or West Coast earthquakes.
If you lived in Denver/Fort Collins/Loveland/Longmont, you’d be about an hour from Rocky Mountain National Park (https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/hikes.htm). That place is a cathedral for naturalists, genuinely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Especially if you’re into hiking RMNP is the greatest thing you could ever live next to and I’ve grown immensely as a person by virtue of it.
That’s what my ex was paying in the northwestern suburbs. The downtown core is probably more expensive but she was in Littleton with a decent 1br. I’m north of the city and like that area more despite Denver having the good ethnic restaurants and botanical garden. Closer proximity to less crowded hikes.
The air quality is what kills it for me too because I associate it with strokes. During the Cameron Peak fire and even the big Californian ones it rained ashes from a sepia sky. That’s god knows what straight into the lungs for weeks on end. I wouldn’t buy a house here or live here ten years from now when the fires are even worse, but it’s a tolerable tradeoff for the mountains. Living in a town like Nederland or Estes would be the ideal.
a local SRA breakoff
Are they actually active? I sent an e-mail a week ago and haven’t heard anything back.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Front Range SRA after the vote to leave National. When I was active in it there were a couple range days per month and regular business meetings. The instability with National turned me off to them until things are more settled and I have a sense of what they want to be as an org.
Gotcha. i just want someone to go shooting with. It took me like two months after I signed up with SRA to find out that Front Range wasn’t part of the org anymore. What a mess.
Philadelphia. You can easily get a 1 bedroom under $2k a month (mine is under $1k, and it’s in a pretty wealthy area), plenty of art, and Fairmount and Wissahickon are huge parks with lots of nature.
i’ve been considering moving to Philly next year for a lot of those reasons. Plus there’s trains going up and down the east coast and that’s really cool
And since Amtrak is subsidized in the northeast, Amtrak is cheap as shit. I’m going to a dance event in DC soon, it cost me $38 total for a round trip. I get to laugh at the suckers who are driving to it, which is most of the people in my scene.
And it certainly has its flaws, but SEPTA is one of the most comprehensive public transit systems in a city in the United States. Especially since some Regional Rail lines connect with NJT.
If you’re fine with winters, Milwaukee is way under 2k/mo, its right on lake michigan, lots of parks, music and art scenes, and the 2024 RNC is gonna be there in case u want to [redacted]
Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are both really pretty with some great kayaking on lakes which extend beyond the horizon. I like Milwaukee. There’s a neat socialist infrastructure legacy there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_socialism
I won’t tell you Chicago is flawless, but if your looking for under 2K, it is absolutely doable for some decent places! Plus there’s tons of lefties there. Obviously thriving art and music scene, the only thing that might give you trouble is proximity to nature. There is an awesome state park in southern IL, but the suburban sprawl takes up a lot of immediate space around city in all directions.
